Analysis of Fidelity
William Wordsworth 1770 (Wordsworth House) – 1850 (Cumberland)
A BARKING sound the Shepherd hears,
A cry as of a dog or fox;
He halts--and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks:
And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.
The Dog is not of mountain breed;
Its motions, too, are wild and shy;
With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:
Nor is there any one in sight
All round, in hollow or on height;
Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;
What is the creature doing here?
It was a cove, a huge recess,
That keeps, till June, December's snow;
A lofty precipice in front,
A silent tarn below!
Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,
Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land;
From trace of human foot or hand.
There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
The crags repeat the raven's croak,
In symphony austere;
Thither the rainbow comes--the cloud--
And mists that spread the flying shroud;
And sunbeams; and the sounding blast,
That, if it could, would hurry past;
But that enormous barrier holds it fast.
Not free from boding thoughts, a while
The Shepherd stood; then makes his way
O'er rocks and stones, following the Dog
As quickly as he may;
Nor far had gone before he found
A human skeleton on the ground;
The appalled Discoverer with a sigh
Looks round, to learn the history.
From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The Man had fallen, that place of fear!
At length upon the Shepherd's mind
It breaks, and all is clear:
He instantly recalled the name,
And who he was, and whence he came;
Remembered, too, the very day
On which the Traveller passed this way.
But hear a wonder, for whose sake
This lamentable tale I tell!
A lasting monument of words
This wonder merits well.
The Dog, which still was hovering nigh,
Repeating the same timid cry,
This Dog, had been through three months' space
A dweller in that savage place.
Yes, proof was plain that, since the day
When this ill-fated Traveller died,
The Dog had watched about the spot,
Or by his master's side:
How nourished here through such long time
He knows, who gave that love sublime;
And gave that strength of feeling, great
Above all human estimate!
Scheme | XAXABBCC XDXDEEFF XGXGBXHH XIXIJJKKK XLXLMMDX AIXINNLL XOXODDPP LQXQRRXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Tetractys (22%) |
Metre | 01010101 01110111 11010111 010101 01110101 01000111 01000111 1011101 01111101 11011101 11010101 010011 11110101 11010111 11110111 11010101 11010101 11110101 01010001 010101 1001011 011101110 111001 11110111 10110101 11010101 0101011 010001 101101 01110101 0100101 11111101 11010100111 1111101 01011111 1010110001 110111 11110111 010100101 0011101 11110100 110101001 011101111 11010101 110111 11000101 01110111 01010101 110100111 11010111 10100111 01010011 110101 011111001 01001101 11111111 01001101 11111101 111101001 01110101 111101 11011111 11111101 01111101 01110100 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,154 |
Words | 399 |
Sentences | 13 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 9, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 65 |
Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 215 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 50 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 01, 2023
- 2:01 min read
- 778 Views
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"Fidelity" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 17 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/42205/fidelity>.
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